During the past century, many rotatable display devices have been developed for various purposes, for example, advertising, sales presentations, education, display of juke box song titles, and record keeping. For some devices, continuous movement and animation were desirable. This was usually accomplished with some degree of success by means of an endless belt, lights or reflectors, and a motor. For other devices, portability was key. For still others, durability was an issue because the display was outdoors, or because members of the public were routinely rotating the device, as with a jukebox song title display mechanism located at a bar or restaurant.
None of these prior art devices, however, particularly suited the needs of the fast food industry, which is catering increasingly to drive-through customers eager to read full menu listings on outdoor menu boards. The industry needs an expedient and routine way to switch among displayed breakfast, lunch and dinner menus; a way to include photographs or illustrations of menu items as part of the menu display if desired; a fast and routine way to change individual menu items and individual illustrations or photographs of selected menu items; and a fast and routine way to change the price of an individual menu item without reprinting the full menu item description.
The ability to change prices has been addressed in the past by use of rotatable tapes containing digits zero through nine. As many of these tapes as necessary could be arranged on a carrier device so that one predetermined digit at a time, per tape, would show through an appropriate opening in the material inscribed with a menu item description. The tape or tapes could be periodically pulled, twisted or rotated in order to change the displayed digit(s), and thus the price of the item. These tapes present unique difficulties when used in outdoor signs because vibrations from passing cars and trucks tend to advance the tapes and change the displayed price.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a relatively large, durable, rotatable sign, that may be operated outdoors, is easy to maintain, is economical to manufacture, is capable of displaying any one of several available menus, and is capable of expediently switching among the available menus.
A related object of the present invention is to provide menus, for display by a rotatable sign, that include relatively narrow descriptive message strips, or relatively large pictures, or some combination of both, where the strips and pictures are removably but securely mounted on inexpensive, reliable, rugged roller chains.
Another object is to provide a rotatable sign in which any one message strip may be easily and routinely exchanged for another message strip, and where any two or more message strips may be easily and routinely exchanged for one or more pictures.
Still another object is to provide a series of rib-shaped transverse mounting slats that easily and securely attach at each end to a roller chain, that just as easily detach from the roller chains, that are designed so that one message strip may be removably inserted between two parallel slats, and will be securely and reliably supported therein, and that are further designed so that a picture may be removably inserted between, and will be partially supported by, two parallel spaced slats.
Yet another object is to provide a mounting clip that easily and securely attaches to a roller chain, that just as easily detaches from the roller chain, and that is designed to be used with other like clips to detachably receive and support a picture at the picture's vertical edges in a rotatable sign assembly.
Yet another object is to provide an attractive message strip that has a price display where the price display may be easily and routinely changed by means of a self-stick adhesive material.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the accompanying description, drawings and claims. Throughout the drawings, like reference numerals refer to like parts.